Exposed_Fury Riders MC

by Sophia Gray

  He yanked me out of the cab, and I stumbled, almost face-planting. If he hadn’t been gripping my arm, I probably would have, though I’d have taken the face-plant to him touching me any day of the damn week.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered me, half throwing me forward so that he could train the gun on me from behind.

  I risked a glance back to see that Kato was still slumped in the car. “What about him?” I asked nervously. Surely they weren’t going to…to kill him, right? They wanted both of us alive, I thought. Otherwise, why not just leave him in the house…with Alex?

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head over ol’ boy in there. The boys will take care of him.”

  Just as he finished speaking, the two men from the front came around with a third guy. They were muttering to each other, but they were quiet, and I’d stepped far enough away at this point that I couldn’t hear them. They opened the door to the car and Kato slumped out. The man with the gun behind me shoved at me to get me to move faster, so I didn’t see more than that. But I hoped it meant that Kato was at least alive.

  Alive. Just stay alive long enough for Pax to save us, I thought.

  The man behind me kept prodding me and shoving me towards a house that came into view. It looked like a bit of a fixer upper from the outside, but even so, it looked better than the rest of the poor neighborhood.

  “What do you guys want?” I finally managed to ask, my voice shaky. I stumbled up the porch steps as I was unceremoniously herded to the front door. We paused there so that the man behind me could reach over my shoulder and slam his fist against the hard wooden door.

  “Open the fucking door!” he called through it impatiently.

  We waited for a minute or so, then the door swung open. On the other side of it was a man with close-cropped hair. He looked like a marine or something, which was not wholly encouraging. He was big, bulky, and had a scary enough expression that I felt the urge to shrink away from him. The only reason I didn’t was that the asshole with the gun was still standing behind me, and the last thing I wanted to do was inadvertently touch him.

  “Bout damn time,” muttered the guy behind me.

  The marine eyed me, then moved his gaze to my captor. “Where’s the other one, Leo?”

  So, the asshole’s name is Leo.

  Leo, who would still forever be known as “the asshole” in my head, shrugged his shoulders and made a face. “How the fuck should I know? He’s halfway to fucking dead anyway. Probably they’re going to dump his body in the river.” He smiled a little like he enjoyed the thought.

  I, however, felt my heart thump in panic. Was he being serious? No, he couldn’t be. Kato was alive when I was dragged here. It was a mixture of my nursing nature and my need for stability to have someone on my side, that made me so desperate to believe that Kato was alright.

  But I admitted that it was getting difficult.

  He was in bad shape, and they didn’t seem all that interested in doing anything to help him get better…

  The other man cursed. “Fuck, Leo! Huxton wants both of them, remember?”

  “Cool it, Rio.” Leo waved his gun around loosely, like he wasn’t concerned with who he might accidentally shoot. The other guy—Rio—didn’t seem to appreciate it, though. He narrowed his eyes at Leo and looked about ready to punch him out.

  Maybe that wouldn’t get me out of here but it might make me feel a little better.

  “You can’t do anything right, can you?” Rio sneered, his thin upper lip curling back in disgust.

  I couldn’t see Leo’s expression thanks to the way he was standing half behind me, but I could hear the petulance in his tone. “Fuck you, man. I did my job. The girl’s here.”

  Rio’s cold eyes glossed over me. “Whatever. Boss wants ‘em both.”

  “Not my problem.” Grabbing my upper arm again, Leo stepped forward and dragged me with him. I stumbled a little again. My skin crawled from his touch, and I realized, with dread that felt like a stone in my stomach, that we were here now. Which meant he could—

  Rio put a large, beefy hand against Leo’s chest. “Hold up. The girl’s my responsibility now.”

  “Fuck no,” Leo spat, grabbing the other guy’s wrist and jerking it away from him. “I went and picked her up, that means I get what’s coming to me.” His eyes slid over to me briefly, and I shuddered. I didn’t know what sort of agreement these guys had, but I found myself seriously hoping that this jackass with the buzz cut was the one who was going to win. Better than the alternative.

  Rio rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. If the boss gives the okay, you can have her. She ain’t my type.” He looked at me pointedly, then grinned. “I like ‘em smaller.”

  For once, I was seriously grateful for my height. I didn’t tower over these guys by any means, but I was tall enough that the marine didn’t find me attractive, and that was pretty okay in my book. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to dissuade Leo, and that sucked. One out of two at least, I thought grimly. It brought me little to no comfort.

  “I was promised—” Leo began, but Rio quickly interrupted him.

  “You weren’t promised nothing.” Rio snorted, an ugly sound, then curled back his lip. “Nothing the rest of us weren’t. Once the boss is done with her, he’ll probably let you have her, but until then, she’s my responsibility, not yours.”

  Leo looked like he wanted to argue further, but I was grateful when he finally just snapped his mouth shut. He gritted his teeth but released me just the same. Well, kind of half threw me into the other guy and let go at the end of his throw, but I was grateful enough not to care, even though I didn’t like slamming against the ogre standing in front of him.

  What the hell had he been eating? Growth hormones? Probably.

  “Looks like you’re with me, sweetcakes,” Rio said with a smile that showed those gross teeth. His hand replaced Leo’s, and he swung me around so that I was fully inside the house, then started angling me towards the stairs, which I presumed led to the basement or maybe a wine cellar.

  I got a brief chance to look around the inside of the house and found that it looked a heck of a lot better than the outside. Still old and sort of dirty in that “it doesn’t matter how many times I bleach this, that spot doesn’t go away” kind of way. But it looked like they had at least used bleach sometime this decade, and otherwise, the place was in pretty good shape.

  The walls were coated in a faded wallpaper that looked like it belonged in a storybook granny’s house. There were those little repeating flowers, pink with green, swirling stems, and a darker golden border that was half faded and discolored to brown.

  The furniture looked old, too. Like antiques or something. They also had flowery patterns and even dollies on the side tables and beneath lamps that continued to floral façade. It was…out of place, to say the least.

  The throw rug really tied the place together, woven with golds, pinks, and even some greens. Honest to God, I couldn’t believe that a bunch of crazy bikers lived here.

  Then it occurred to me. Oh, God, what if some little old lady lived here and they killed her to take her house?

  I wanted to shake the thought away, but it was pretty easy to think of all kinds of awful things about these guys. Really, they’d killed Alex, roughed up Kato, and run me off the road, not to mention the kidnapping and that asshole Leo outside who seemed to believe that he could have his way with me, no consequences. So, yeah, pretty easy to see them murdering some poor old lady and holing up in her house.

  Jesus. How the hell am I going to get out of here? Is their boss the worst of them all?

  I barely got a glimpse of a kitchen—and was appalled to see still more flowering themes and what looked suspiciously like a teapot—before Mr. Big and Buzz Cut dragged me past the doorway which led to the stairs. He shoved me down them hard enough that I tripped. I would have fallen down the rest of the way, except that he still had hold of my arm. So instead, I slid down, caught myself awkwardly on my knees
, and felt my arm jerk up above me uncomfortably.

  “Shit!” I cursed as Rio jerked me back to my feet unsteadily.

  “Watch your step,” he told me with a grin that said he wasn’t too upset about my little tumble.

  Asshole, I thought but held my tongue. Then, considering where I was and how little this guy thought of Leo doing unspeakable things to me, I reconsidered. “Asshole,” I told him defiantly, lifting my chin a little.

  His eyes narrowed at me, losing that pretty quality they’d held earlier. “Bitch,” he said. I saw him cock his free arm back and braced myself for the blow, clenching my eyes closed as I readied myself for impact.

  But it never came. Instead, a voice came up from the bottom of the stairs. “Such language. What are we teaching our kids these days?”

  Surprised, I opened my eyes. I saw Rio staring at me still, murderous daggers shooting towards me harmlessly. It seemed he couldn’t do anything to me because that voice below had made him tense and forced his hand to lower, it seemed. “She’s got a foul mouth, sir,” he told the voice below.

  “I noticed she’s not the only one,” came the voice again, and this time, I turned awkwardly to look over my shoulder towards it.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I spotted him. He was a fairly tall man, muscular as apparently they all were, with dark hair that was cropped close to his head. But it wasn’t that buzz cut, white-walled bullshit that Rio had. Instead, it just looked neat and well-maintained. Though the man clearly worked out, he didn’t look grotesque as some of them did. He just looked…proportionate. In fact, he looked sort of attractive…

  Okay, really attractive. If the situation had been different—and I hadn’t just found myself tangled up in the arms of Pax—I might have considered him a possibility for dating.

  Which, I really hadn’t been doing so I wouldn’t have given him much thought, but he was difficult not to notice.

  His beauty gave me one moment of ignorant, fleeting hope that maybe he wasn’t like the rest of them. Call it superficial, but sometimes, you really could judge a book by its cover. Unfortunately, that was a little harder to gauge in real life, especially when it came to people. My heart dropped quickly when he spoke again.

  “I expect you to be a hard ass, Rio, but not obscene.” He let his liquid gaze smooth to me. It was full of what I might normally call happiness, except that something about him was just a little bit off. “After all, we may be about to torture her, but we don’t need to be rude.”

  Panic swept through me faster and fiercer than any emotion I’d ever experienced in my life. Torture? No, definitely no. This can’t be happening.

  I didn’t even realize that I was jerking and twisting and clawing my way towards the door, catching my nails against Rio’s thick arms in an attempt to get away. I might have drawn blood, but Rio barely even grunted. I thought he cursed under his breath, but he kept the tone low enough that it wouldn’t carry down the stairs.

  Down to the man that was going to torture me.

  Gotta get away, gotta get away! My mind was feeding me that line over and over again, desperately. The need to get free was overwhelming, and my body reacted to that need before my conscious mind had even registered it. Like a scared animal tucked into a corner, I was wild and nearly rabid, but I was no match for Rio. Not even close.

  He released me for half a second, which I used to try and get around him. But then his arm came back to me, catching me heavily across the waist. The air rushed out of me so fast that I felt breathless and a little lightheaded.

  The large man threw me over his shoulder and started making his way down the stairs, oblivious to my flailing and kicking limbs. I might as well have been a scarecrow for all the inconvenience I seemed to be.

  “That’s it,” muttered the man downstairs. “We’d better get started. After all, we’re already behind schedule.”

  Rio carried me all the way down the stairs. My nose was overwhelmed with the scent of earth and must, typical underground stuff, though I knew we couldn’t be that deep. The stairs just weren’t that numerous. I was still struggling, trying to get free, so I barely registered the surroundings. All I really noticed was that it was dimmer down here and there was a chair and a table—a long table with a light hanging over it, the only light in the place, a light that was causing the shiny, metal objects on the table to glint.

  Oh God. He has things to torture me with. This is not happening!

  The urge to vomit was strong, and I nearly did so right down Mr. Buzz Cut’s back. But we’d reached the chair, and then he was putting me down. Well, half throwing me down so that I hit the hard-backed chair hard enough that my ass was going to be sore. I let out a cry mixed with a high pitched squeal—very attractive, not that I cared in that moment.

  To my credit, though, the second my ass hit that chair, I tried to jump back out of it. Unfortunately, Rio hadn’t moved. He stood in front of my like a short, wide wall and as hard as one. I slammed into him, and he easily shoved me back.

  I hit the chair a second time, then a new pair of hands landed on my shoulders. I tried to wiggle loose to make another break for it, but the hands were surprisingly strong. They dug into my shoulders, grip deathlike, and held me in place. Rio went over to the table—I nearly lost it again right there when I thought of the glinting things there—grabbed something, then came back.

  It turned out that what he’d grabbed was several somethings. Namely, handcuffs. Three pairs of them.

  “What are you—?” I began dumbly, but the man holding me from behind leaned forward. I felt his breath against my ear, causing an unpleasant shudder to run through me.

  “Don’t struggle. It won’t help you now.” It was the man from the bottom of the stairs, meaning it was probably just him, me, and Rio down here. I wasn’t sure if that comforted me or not.

  Rio used the handcuffs to restrain both of my legs to both of the chair’s front legs. It didn’t give me a lot of wiggle room, but there was a gap between my legs and the chair legs. Maybe if he does the hands the same way, there’ll be a chance for me to wiggle free… Then he yanked my arms harshly behind me so that my wrists were pressed together. He cuffed them like that, taking away what little room the cuffs had given my legs.

  I didn’t have time to feel too deflated because I heard something. A sound came through the wall closest to me on my left. It was a deep, groaning sound followed by a loud thud. Another groaning. Then muffled voices that I couldn’t quite make out…

  “What is that?” I asked in a quiet voice. There was something inside me that said I didn’t want to know. I didn’t… I didn’t want to know. But I had to ask.

  Now that I was fully secured to the chair, the man standing behind me released my shoulders. I heard his footsteps echoing off the hard concrete floor as he came to stand in front of me. Leaning down so that we were eye level, I once again noticed how attractive he was—and how sick that was making me given the situation.

  “That?” he asked, sounding almost…amused. “You haven’t put it together yet?”

  I hesitated, then shook my head.

  He smiled at me in what would probably be considered a pleasant way, if he hadn’t just said he was going to torture me. “Why, it’s your friend.”

  My friend?

  My stomach dropped as I heard another thud followed by a groan. “Kato?” I asked in a low whisper.

  The man nodded. “That’s right. I wanted to make sure you two were…close.” His smile widened. “That way you can hear each other scream.”

  That rolling sickness swept me again. Scream? Oh, God, what were they doing to Kato? I didn’t have the guts—or the stomach—to ask, so I remained silent. This didn’t seem to bother my captor at this junction. He just seemed like he wanted me to know, that was all.

  We listened to the thuds and the groaning for several lingering moments, each sound seeming to echo loudly in my ears. Then the man returned his attention to me. “Do you know who I am?”

 
I hesitated. I had a guess. Based on who Pax said ran me off the road several nights ago and the fact that they took both me and Kato, I was willing to hazard a guess that these guys were the Chaos Disciples Pax had mentioned. And Rio had called this man boss, hadn’t he? So this was likely Diego Huxton.

  But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I tentatively shook my head. There was a moment of silence next door, then a scream came muffled through the walls. I winced.

  The man seemed unconcerned with the sounds coming from the other side of that wall. “I see. Well, let me explain some things to you then. My name is Diego Huxton, and I run the Chaos Disciples motorcycle club. Do you know what that means?”

  When I shook my head again, he smiled.